Reviews of anything and everything worth watching on TV or reading in books...

Monday, 20 August 2012

The Chase

The Chase is
something of an oddity.Taken on face
value, it is a rather abstract comedy.Yet it serves two vital purposes – one is the swansong of Ian and
Barbara, and the other is the return of the Daleks, the cash cow of Terry
Nation and the BBC.Much like Nation’s
script for The Keys of Marinus, it is
a brave piece, technically demanding as it warrants a number of elaborate set
pieces within a variety of different locations.Unlike The Keys of Marinus,
though, the set pieces are far superior, with some excellent set work, blended
almost seamlessly with some location filming of extras filling in for the
cast.

Following on from the ominous cliffhanger from The Space Museum, as the Daleks gathered
around a monitor to declare that their enemies were to be “exterminated –
exterminated – exterminated!” the serial becomes rather odd – instead of
playing on the tension created here, the first episode sees the crew of the
TARDIS take a short holiday.What is
particularly odd about this is that whilst the audience are aware of the
impending danger, the crew obliviously hang around, dress-making, watching TV
and reading, before arriving on Aridius and going sunbathing.Indeed, the greatest oddity about this first instalment
are the scenes involving the Time-Space Visualiser.Considering that the crew are in a space ship
which can readily travel through time and space, albeit without being
controllable, rather than actually going travelling, they decide to sit by and
become voyeurs into history.There is a
sense of passive laziness here.It is
odd, and doesn’t quite sit right.We are
so used to the TARDIS crew actively engaging in history that to see them prefer
to watch them from the safety of the ship seems strange – particularly considering
the way in which this story unfolds, but more on that later.

The Time-Space Visualiser scenes are entertaining enough,
mind – the deadpan delivery of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address is
wonderful, although rather tedious, running for nearly two minutes and
including more than half of the original speech.The scenes with Shakespeare and the Queen are
wittily handled, as he thinks about the possibility of writing Hamlet.The most bizarre section, though, is the
performance of the Beatles, delivering their “classical” music.Seeing Ian dancing is awkward – one can
imagine him at a school disco, pupils cringing on the school benches as he does
a little jig reminiscent of Susan’s dancing in An Unearthly Child.

Richard Martin’s direction is always, at best, sloppy, and The Chase is no exception.That said, there are a few neat directorial
decisions which show some potential flair – the scene in which the crew decide
to go out onto Aridius is wonderfully shot, covering for the absence of the
central column in the TARDIS by having Hartnell looming into shot, with a POV
angle as he leans forward to flick the controls.

15 minutes passes before there is even a re-emergence of the
Daleks, as Barbara pops back in to the ship to turn off the Time-Space Visualiser,
seeing the Daleks in their control base discussing their imminent attack and
their own time machine.Terry Nation’s
obsession with having the Daleks repeat phrases which are supposedly
threatening is one of my biggest bugbears about his writing, and this scene
particularly gripes me where, once the Doctor has joined Barbara at the
monitor, she says “Doctor, he said ‘TARDIS’” – the Daleks in question said the
word about 20 times before we cut back to our time travellers, and whilst
Hartnell plays the Doctor as a doddery old man at times, I don’t think that there is anything wrong
with his hearing!

The cliffhanger to episode 1 is strange – it is either very
clever or very, very silly – and sadly I think it comes across as the
latter.As the Dalek emerges from the
sand, it is reminiscent of the incredibly effective cliffhanger from episode 1
of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, as
the Dalek emerged from the polluted waters of the Thames.Here, though, we instead have a wheezing,
groaning Dalek, forcing its way up from the sand dunes.What makes the Daleks so impressive and
unnerving is their very alienness, but here, Nation has elected to make them
humorous and human – we would, ourselves, groan as we pushed our way up from
being buried under sand, but to see a Dalek doing so is preposterous.It does, of course, raise an interesting
question, though, and one which will be revisited throughout this serial – but not
fully cleared up until Remembrance of the
Daleks some 23 years later.The
emergence of the Dalek in a vertical manner suggests that the Daleks are able
to levitate, or float, somehow.Is this
the first ever flying Dalek?!We later
see them over several floors on the Mary Celeste, too, although in the haunted
house of episode 4, Ian makes a comment about the top floor being “safe” due to
the presence of stairs.

The planet, Aridius, is very dry, with nothing but sand
dunes for miles – it’s arid, see?As
always, Nation’s writing is either questionably clever or, more probably,
lazy.Mechanus is peopled by machines,
Aridius is arid...the issue with these
place names, however, is that since Mechanus was originally empty, and the
robots were sent there by humans, surely it would have had a different name
before – either that or it’s one hell of a coincidence.Likewise with Aridius – we are told that
originally the entire world was underwater but dried out due to the twin suns
burning down.Again, if that is the
case, then it raises the question ‘did they rename the planet after the
droughts?’ or is that, too, just lucky?

Richard Martin clearly considers himself something of an
auteur – the use of similar locations (always sci-fi) as well as a staple cast
is a trademark of auteurs like Scorsese and Tarantino.Most of the cast in this serial has worked
with Martin before, most noticeably in The
Web Planet, and so were clearly used to his rather sloppy management.

The costume and makeup on the Aridians is impressive – if you
look beyond the blatant bald cap, of course – and their simpering performances
are quite enjoyable.It is easy to
understand why they are such turncoats, willingly handing over the TARDIS crew
with nonchalance and resignation.They
are effete, camp with no way of defending themselves, and Hartnell’s acceptance
of their motives is brilliantly handled;he doesn’t shout or bluster, but simply looks disappointed.Whilst it is difficult to imagine a more
modern Doctor simply swanning off and leaving a race of people to die at the
hands (or tentacles) of the Mire Beasts, Hartnell becomes utterly justifiable
in his motives.The scene in which the
Aridians are being forced to unbury the TARDIS for the Daleks is particularly
funny – they are shifting the sand grain by grain, with furtive and terrified
glances over their shoulders throughout.

The Mire Beasts themselves are actually rather impressive –
particularly considering the abomination of the Slyther in The Dalek Invasion of Earth.Again,
it was Verity Lambert’s input which ensured these were more effective,
insisting that Martin shot them cleverly from well-lit angles, as opposed to
head on as before.Jack Pitt, as the
main Mire Beast, later appears 3 more times in this serial, as a variety of
characters, mostly underneath huge costumes, and the strange movements with
which the Mire Beast drags itself along makes the costume a little more believable.

Once the crew escape from the Aridians, thanks to the
collapse of a partition wall keeping the Mire Beasts enclosed in their part of
the underground city, there is a rather obscure scene in which Hartnell and
Russell, with an interjection from Maureen O’Brien too, defeat a Dalek, by
hollering obscure names at him – in no other serial could the crew get away
with referring to a Dalek as “Fred!” and “Archie!” with any modicum of
self-respect.That these names were
adlibbed by the crew is all the more obscure and telling – even they couldn’t
take the script seriously.

Once back in the TARDIS in episode 3, Hartnell refers to the
incident with Fred, saying that they had given the Daleks “a very good hiding”...which of course they didn’t.We know that there are 6 Daleks on board
their Time Ship (cleverly created by having the same three rotates through the
doors, off screen, and re-entering, a trick later used in Day of the Daleks to equally strong effect) yet they have only
destroyed the one.Indeed, the
discrepancy in numbers of Daleks throughout is very confusing, and again a sign
of sloppy direction on Martin’s part.Despite one being destroyed on Aridius, and another falling off the Mary
Celeste, and yet another being thrown to the floor by Frankenstein’s monster in
the haunted house, when we get to Mechanus there seem to be more than six Daleks still going strong!

Again, the Daleks are made to seem rather stupid and a
little too human at other points in the serial as well – in episode 2,
following a command being given, the commanding Dalek turns back to the first
Dalek and barks “Well?See to it!”Throughout episode 3 and again in episode 4,
one particular Dalek seems entirely unsure what the hell is going on, mumbling
and stuttering its lines, like Gareth Gates with laryngitis.It all seems rather surreal. Added to this Dudley Simpson’s frenetic music
style, with some very odd choices throughout, and again it is unclear whether
we should be taking this whole thing seriously or not.

On the up-side, however, episode 3 does include some
excellent set pieces and design work, and allows for some comedy where it is
clearly intended – Peter Purves’ turn at hamming it up as Alabaman tourist
Morton Dill is brilliant.Purves also
has some fantastic adlibs, such as speaking into the Dalek plunger.In the scene on the Empire State Building, South
African-born Arne Gordon, formerly a Menoptera in The Web Planet, gets a chance to do his best Columbo impression
(about 3 years earlier) and a rather burly man, looking every overweight inch
the American tourist, has a fabulous little moment where he towers over Dill,
presumed insane.

Following the scenes on the Empire State building, and with
the time between the TARDIS and the Daleks decreasing with every landing, the
crew arrive on board the Mary Celeste, and Barbara is promptly sexually harassed
by a sailor presuming that she is a stowaway.There is some comedy here, but it is very quickly stopped with the
rather bleak scenes which unfold upon the arrival of the Daleks.Terrified superstitious sailors all prefer to
jump into the sea, abandoning ship, than deal with the invaders, and there is a
rather horrific moment where a woman, with a child wrapped in swaddling clothes,
also jumps overboard.Jack Pitt once
again appears onboard, this time as the ship’s Steward, and actually gets to
speak before plunging to his demise.

But this brings me to my biggest issue with this serial –
and one which would, admittedly, have made a rather dull story.Why do the crew ever leave the safety of the
TARDIS?It is quite clear that as soon
as they have landed they will need to leave again, once the ship is ready, and
yet every single time they elect to exit, often split up, and usually get into
trouble.The TARDIS is impervious to the
Dalek attack, which has been established, and so why they do not simply wait
until they reach an ideal location is utterly beyond me.

Episode 4 is another of those surreal moments, and it all
seems a little unclear on the intentions.Nation had originally written the scene to take place within the human
psyche – indeed, Hartnell’s explanation for their presence in a house filled
with ghosts, ghouls, bats and legendary monsters even confirms this.Verity Lambert argued that this would never
work within the realms of the remit of what the show had already established,
and would open a can of worms, a Pandora’s Box of troubles for them.As such, it was rewritten that the house was
in fact a theme park amusement, abandoned.Why the robots are still roaming the attraction, and quite why they are
so violent towards the guests, is never explained – perhaps it is because they are violent that the theme
park has been abandoned?Who knows?What this particular episode does do, to some
extent, is pave the way for the Troughton serial The Mind Robber, set in the Land of Fiction, and inhabited by
fictional characters – a place later revisited in the arguably non-canonical
Big Finish audio with Colin Baker’s Doctor, Legend
of the Cybermen.Fortunately for the
serial, this new justification can be used to excuse some of the poor SFX – the
bats clearly on strings, the bad dubbing over Dracula’s robotic voice and the
like are more excusable when looked at as a faux theme park attraction.

The end of episode 4, and the majority of episode 5, drives me
crazy.It isn’t that the idea of a
robotic Doctor is a bad one – it is genius, to be fair, as a way of separating
the TARDIS crew and dispatching them one by one.Unfortunately, it is Richard Martin’s
cack-handedness with direction that destroys all plausibility in this.Through selective camera angles and effective
lighting, the concept could quite easily have worked.Instead, as with the Zarbi fiasco on The Web Planet, he elects to shoot
Edmund Warwick, as the Robot Doctor, directly from in front, with too little
distance to hide the fact that his miming along to Hartnell’s pre-recorded
dialogue doesn’t sync up with Warwick’s mouth at all.Now, of course, because of the limitations of
recording the show ‘as live’ in the 1960s, this was unavoidable for some scenes
– it was literally impossible to have had Hartnell as both Doctors.I get that, and I appreciate it.But what I don’t understand, particularly
considering only 2/3rds of the floor was used for sets, was why the locations
for the separate scenes requiring Hartnell and Warwick were not closer – as if the
simple fact that they claim that he is “a perfect replica” were not bad enough,
Vicki then concurs.What would have made
sense were for Warwick to only double as the Doctor in those scenes shot from
behind, or above, or where both were in shot at the same time.It is made no less confusing when in a long
shot, the character is played by Warwick miming terribly – and then we cut to
close up and it is Hartnell.What then
adds to the confusion even further is that the production crew are evidently
aware that Warwick looks nothing like
Hartnell, and so in some scenes, it is Hartnell
playing the replica, with Warwick miming as the ‘real’ Doctor.

My god, it just gets me so angry.

Particularly because, other than the Warwick fiasco, episode
5 is rather well done.The Fungoid
costumes are actually rather good – also featuring Jack Pitt again! – and the
idea of an intelligent life having set up this safety system, but not being
present, is also very good.Maureen O’Brien
here once more gets to prove her worth, never screaming – except for the bellow
she gives for assistance – and proving that she isn’t a typical companion for
the Doctor.The set design and model
work is also exceptional – the Mechanoid city in particular is wonderfully
realised thanks to Cusick’s plans and Shawcraft’s model work.In fact, my only bugbear about the end of
episode 5 and the whole of episode 6 is, really, the Mechanoid voices.They are almost indiscernible.

On the upside, though, is the return of Peter Purves, this
time appearing as Steven, soon to be a full time companion of the Doctor.Apparently, he was cast as Steven as he’d
impressed the cast and crew so much as Morton Dill – which frankly baffles me,
since Dill was a character created almost entirely as a caricature of
ridiculous Americans, and whilst he was funny, he was hardly
groundbreaking.That said, Steven is one
of my all-time favourite companions, and the realism with which he embodies his
performance here is magnificent – when he first sees the TARDIS crew and asks
them if they’re real, my heart bleeds – and then they ask him to repeat his
name for him, and it is wonderful.He bites
his lip, scarcely willing to believe that there is finally some company for
him.

Following the cartoon violence of the final showdown – which
is rather disappointing, although the slanted camera angles at least detracts
from the monotony of the hand-drawn cartoon explosions and repetitive chants of
Daleks and Mechanoids both – comes the sole purpose of this serial;Ian and Barbara’s farewell.After nearly two years of travelling with the
Doctor, they are offered the opportunity to return home, and it is lovely.Of course, the very fact that they’d returned
to Earth in the 1960s in episode 3 – albeit America in the 1960s – is by-the-by.That the travellers are finally faced with a
fool-proof method home is great – unlike other travellers who end up miles and
years away from home, including Steven in the future, and Susan in the past –
Ian and Barbara are finally given the opportunity to return to their own place
and time, and it is that Ian is so slow to realise the ramifications – and that
even when he does, he waits for Barbara’s approval first – that is so genuinely
wonderful about this.The scene in which
they beseech the Doctor to assist them to return never fails to make me
shiver;as with Susan’s leaving, it is
Hartnell that really sells this, and his solemn acceptance, leading the
teachers into the machine, and then his mute resolution to not turn around and
see them leave is beautifully underplayed.

The photo montage is a little cheesy, but having said that,
it seems only right – after all of the wonders of time and space, the look of
genuine excitement on their faces as they scare pigeons and then laugh at a bus
driver is fantastic.As we cut back to
the Time-Space Visualiser, to see Vicki and the Doctor looking back at them,
watching from their unknown place and time, wondering the stars, Hartnell’s
speech resonates hugely – “I shall miss them.Yes, I shall miss them”.

About Me

Scott Edwards is a teacher of English and Theatre Studies, with a BAHons in English Literature and Film Studies.He is also a self-professed ‘ming-mong’, and is now going to return to some Classic Doctor Who.